Originally Posted by
El_Duderito
Everything that is out in the open here will (if it's worth) be (ab)used to make money. That's life. I can understand your concern and I've been in the same situation - even seen my own deals being sold on a paid-for mailing list.
Lots of activity has been moved to private forums and mailing lists to counter this.
It certainly doesn't solve the problem but merely creates yet another myriad of issues: whom to allow in, whom to throw out, how to identify potential leaks ...
One thing to also consider is that there are multiple forums and there is a good change that several people found the same deal - completely independent.
I'd say you could find lots of deals by merely checking the Kayak explore maps and never visiting FT (btw: this means that somebody already search for and found the specific deal).
You're right in many respects. And someone stealing deals for profit is just a fact of life. For me, one of the reasons why I like the open forum concept of FT is the interaction with users that helps to make a deal better. I can work on a deal with users here and find open jaws, double open jaws, layovers, transit points, etc.; and it works to not only improve the deal itself, but also improve my understanding of how deals can work. When that process is corrupted by a blog taking the work product for a buck, then it sucks.
For example, I posted about São Paulo to Bangkok, then on to London for $500 USD. A blog picked it up and now, suspiciously enough, that combination has died (I'm sure that airline is trolling for mentions of its name after the AUH Christmas Day glitch fare fiasco). Anyway, I've digressed into whining over my wine glass.